Most contact center agents are required to multi-task to maximize efficiency. In particular, a multi-tasking agent may be asked to handle multiple contacts and/or contact types simultaneously. For instance, a multi-tasking agent may be assigned both a real-time call as well as an IM chat, email, non-real-time contact, or near real-time contact.
Another type of multi-tasking scenario may not necessarily require that an agent handle two contacts at the same time, but it may require that the agent handles very different contacts back-to-back. For example, a bilingual agent may be considered to be multi-tasking if that agent is continuously moving back and forth between English work items and Spanish work items.
Unfortunately, as agents begin multi-tasking (e.g., simultaneously handling multiple contacts, contact types, or handling substantially different contacts back-to-back) they may become less efficient at handling each task. However, the overall efficiency for handling the multiple tasks (e.g., global efficiencies) may be increased. Moreover, an individual agent may not mind multi-tasking and, as in the bilingual multi-tasking example, the agent may enjoy the varied work, the agent may not be as efficient when continuously multi-tasking. As such, the decrease in an agent's efficiency due to fatigue (or other factors) may be masked by the agent's overall efficiency for handling multiple contacts.
It would be advantageous to provide a mechanism that can track a multi-tasking agent's performance (e.g., efficiency, profit/contact, customer satisfaction, etc.) and adjust the extent to which the agent is asked to multi-task based on the agent's performance. Benefits may include reducing individual agent fatigue while increasing long term agent efficiency.